Fleischer Promo Art #12: “Betty Boop And The Little King”

Big things happened for Popeye in 1936, whereas they remained stagnant as ever for Betty (aren’t you just tired of reading that?). That release season has been cited recently as the gold standard for Fleischer’s Popeye cartoons, the model Sony is using for its CGI feature (believe it when you see it). That’s a hard claim to argue, as just about all the elements came together that year to create as perfect a series animation has ever known.

January 29th’s entry is quite interesting: it’s the exact same art that accompanied the song “I’ll Be Seein’ Ya in the Movies” in the Popeye Song Folio published later that year. It looks as though it was repurposed for the book, and it’s not the last time “familiar” artwork will appear in Paramount Sales News.

Click to enlarge

01-01-36

01-08-36

01-15-36

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02-12-36

02-19-36

Feb. 26th 1936

Below: a few samples of what the Paramount salesmen were selling to the theaters at the time these promotional pieces above appeared in print.